Sacrifice

higher frequencies in its drives made his sinuses tingle.

"Who says defense procurement drags its feet?" said Medrit. He didn't seem bothered by the noise, even minus his helmet, but then blacksmiths had often been deafened by their trade. "Record time."

"Only another half a million of these," Fett said, "and we'll be in business."

"It's never about numbers, Mand'alor. Never was."

There was something about the fighter—its effortless hover and tilt, combined with the distinct throbbing note of its propulsion—that made it exceptionally attractive. Fett doubted if it would have looked quite so pretty if it was pounding your city to molten slag. He planned to claim the offer of a test flight.

Mandalore was resurgent, as Beviin liked to say, and it was gathering pace. A steady stream of Mandalorians was returning from diaspora. A few hundred thousand in a week was nothing for a trillion-body city-planet like Coruscant, but Mandalore was now creaking with the influx.

"You'd think a big empty planet like this could cope with a few immigrants," Fett said.

"Poor infrastructure." Medrit craned his neck to watch another Bes'uliik take off. "Got to fix that. Four million was always a nice stable population until the crab-boys messed everything up."

"How many incomers, worst scenario?"

"Impossible to tell. But you asked for two million to come back, and I dare say we'll get that."

Fett still marveled at the ability of people to uproot themselves, but then Mando'ade were traditionally nomads—and even he was happier in Slave I than with a roof over his head. "I'm always touched when people do things without my needing to hang them out of windows."